News & Views item - May 2010

 

 

The Australian Government's 2010-11 Science, Research and Innovation Budget Tables. (May 12, 2010)

The seven-page document  The Australian Government's 2010-11 Science, Research and Innovation Budget Tables made available by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research is designed to "provide an overview of whole-of-government support for science, research and innovation by the Australian Government over a 10 year period".

 

Table 1 indicates that overall the federal government is providing small but significant increases above inflation to many sectors, but that is not the case across the board.

 

While it is hardly a endorsement of R&D as a powerful force for Australia's future wellbeing, looking toward the opposition benches bodes serious consequences.

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Some examples, CSIRO's budget allocation increases from $726.8 million to $780.8 million, i.e. 7.4%.

The Australian Research Council moves from $664.2m to $717.2m, an increase of 8%.

And the NHMRC + Other Health is raised from $880.5m to $1067.3m, an increase of 21.2%

 

But Performance Based Block Funding drops from $1146.9m to $1007.9m, i.e. -12% and

Cooperative Research Centres funding suffers a reduction from $178.9m to $172.6m -3.2%

 

Overall the expenditure has increased from $8,409.8m to $ 8,923.4m yielding an increase of 6.1% which is 2.59% of the overall budget forecast for 2010-11 of just under $350 billion.

 

The figures provided are "actual cost in the years incurred", therefore, allow about 2.5% for inflation between 2009-10 and 2010-11.